Model Boat Mayhem

We have been visiting our daughter and her family who live in the Central Highlands of Queensland. They are 200 km west of Rockhampton, 800 km north west of Brisbane and about 1100 km from where we live. It's in the middle of Queensland's coal mining district, with many open cut mines operating over a large area. Unfortunately, the world price of coal, and the demand from the likes of China, have dropped dramatically, causing many mines to lay off staff. This is having a big effect on Blackwater and similar towns as people are being made redundant and leaving.

Our van is parked in our daughter's back yard, and behind it is a large open area of farmland. There are quite a few kangaroos, and the 2 shown below were only about 50 metres from the van, over the back fence, they are a female and her quite big joey. Our daughter tells me she has seen as many as 30 roos at a time, and there were actually another 4 or 5 with these two, but they were laying down in the long grass, and can't be seen.

It was reported that a large grey kangaroo, which had become something of an attraction at the local hospital, was shot and killed by some idiot a couple of nights ago. It used to look through the hospital windows, and graze in the grounds. It posed no threat, and was regarded almost as a pet by the hospital employees. The police are investigating this senseless killing.

Two other photos of roos were taken when we visited Glenlyon Dam, near Tenterfield NSW, a couple of years ago. They were relatively tame, and I was able to get close enough to take some shots. There are millions of kangaroos in Australia, yet because most of the human population live in major cities, they only see them when travelling in country areas, or in zoos and wildlife parks. Roos can be pests to farmers in grain growing and grazing regions as they can do considerable damage to crops or pasture.

Well Peter first thanks for the very nice picture, & your daughter will not have to mow any lawn with these guys around. The senseless shooting of wild animals as a sport should be stopped, it leaves me cold inside, having spent over 25 years of my life photographing wild life here in North America. It is something I will never forget. Their live is tough enough trying to survive. Mick B.

It was reported that a large grey kangaroo, which had become something of an attraction at the local hospital, was shot and killed by some idiot a couple of nights ago. It used to look through the hospital windows, and graze in the grounds. It posed no threat, and was regarded almost as a pet by the hospital employees. The police are investigating this senseless killing.

They need to check out the dentists in the area I would suggest................ ok2

The killing of wild animals is always an emotional subject and something I generally disapprove of. However, since the coming of European settlement in Australia kangaroos have never had it so good and, as a result, have bred prolifically. Graziers have created easy access to water for their livestock, planted large areas of crops and improved pastures, all of which means that local wildlife have a vastly better food and water supply. Unfortunately, kangaroo numbers have increased dramatically, so culling has been, and is still, necessary. Despite what some would have us believe, kangaroos are definitely not a threatened species, there are literally millions of them across our vast country, and they remain a much loved symbol of Australia.

We drove over to my son's place today about 100km (not far outside Canberra) . I didn't really attempt to count the grey kangaroos but I would say the biggest mob was about 30, I would guess at over 200 in total. This was in paddocks at the sides of the road. We would also have seen a dozen or more bodies, kangaroos that had been hit by cars (or had hit cars). We saw a few at the side of the road only 5 -10 feet away from us, we had one large one bounding out of trees at the side of the road, crossing the road about 20 ft in front of us. Don't tell me the number of kangaroos is going down.

To make it a little boat related, are you aware that if you have a dog and it chases a a kangaroo, they will sometimes go into a farm dam and when the dog follows them the kangaroo will hold the dog and drown it. I've heard of it a few times and it has happened to a friend of mine.

Hi all, I was in Australia visiting my son 3 years ago, May / June time and we spent some time in the Daintree national forest area. Driving along in the light rain we saw a pair of cassowaries. They were on the road and indifferent to the 3 cars that stopped to see them, not quite posing for photographs they just caried on into the forest. The authorities ask for all sightings to be reported, we were privileged it seems.If anyone goes there all the garages sell rain "jackets' with hoods, essential purchases.regards Roy

Kangaroo meat is probably that colour because its fat content is so low, only around 2%. This makes it very healthy but tricky to cook well as it tends to dry out. I have seen it for sale in France, so give it a try. Any venison recipe should work well.

Another shot of some visiting wildjife of a different kind, a Sulphur Crested White Cockatoo on the back fence of our daughter's chicken run, where it had been helping itself to the chicken feed. There a lots of them around, and their raucous calls are very distinctive.

The other photos were taken while I was out for my morning bike ride last Saturday. It was taken on a road my son-in-law uses when he rides his bike to work at an open cut coal mine. It is in the process of being upgraded, although I'm not sure why as very little traffic uses it at present. I was about 8 km outside the town of Blackwater, and the distant hills in the first shot are part of the Blackdown Tableland, roughly 40 km away. In the other shot, the hills behind are part of the spoil heap of the mine.

It does look that way, Ken, but the town of Blackwater, population around 6,000, is only about 8 km away. Having said that, distance means nothing to the people here, they think nothing of driving to Rockhampton to go to the cinema, a 400 km round trip :o

Do you get a lot of roadkill out there Peter, I would imagine that colliding with a kangaroo could cause a lot of damage to both parties. And it must be a bit of a shock to come across a gut spilled flattypus. %)

Yes, Colin, there is a lot of roadkill in rural areas, particularly kangaroos and wallabies. Collision with a roo, especially a big one, can cause considerable damage to a car, and is usually fatal to the roo. On our trip earlier this year, while travelling between Cunnamulla, near the Queensland / NSW border, and Bourke in western NSW, we saw the remains of dead roos on an average every 100 metres. Most of the remains were little more than desiccated skin and bones, and were quite old, but there was still a number of fresh kills from the previous night - most collisions with wildlife occur at night, with dawn and dusk being the worst times. Most of the deaths of roos etc on country roads are caused by heavy vehicles such as semi-trailers, B-doubles and road trains. These vehicles don't stop quickly and, as they are fitted with bull bars, just keep going, to attempt to avoid a roo could cause an accident. In some areas, emus are a problem, and they, too, can cause a lot of damage to vehicles.

I never travel in roo country at night in a car, it's not worth the risk, but during my coach driving days it was often necessary. I did hit a number of roos, they can suddenly decide to cross the road just as you approach, and there's no time to stop. BTW, it would be almost unheard of to hit a platypus, as they are aquatic, very shy, and rarely seen.

I remember on a run ashore in Sydney in the '70's, the 4-8 watch met some extremely wild life in King's Cross. Fighting it off in hand-to-hand combat took some time and the 12-4 were very lucky to be relieved on time. Oh memories.....

Having done wild life photography for nearly three decades I was fortunate enough to never have hit any animals, that is until last month when driving home from the shop all of a sudden there was a deer not two feet from my windshield. I was going about 70k & sadly I had no chance to miss her. I stopped & went back to see her, she was already dead, so nothing to do but report it. The strange thing was I was more upset with killing the deer than the damage to my van. I am still not over the shock & sad feeling it left me with, I can't imagine what it would be like if it had been a person. Mick B.

My wife and I have just done 23.000 kilometres around this country of ours, (Australia) and we estimated that there were at least a hundred and fifty dead roos on the road per day, this trip took well over a year and a half, so you can just imagine the kangaroo numbers that are in Aus........

Well boneash...it is well known that the size of the brain of the Kangaroo specie is distinctly smaller than that of homo-sapiens.....however some examples of human beings display a clearly lower level of thought or intelligence than a few kangas I have known :-) over the past 50 years

Further I would not suggest that kangas display any form of stupidity, but are simply the product of mother natures and evolutions creation

cbr900... disappointingly on our ABC television last night, we witnessed a report of a kangaroo plague proportion in Northern Queensland and the towns folk wanted barbed razor wire fences installed around their properties to stop the kangas bounding in & eating the crops from 'their' the farmers land

It certainly was a disgrace >>:-( on the part of the ABC journalist suggesting that the farmers owned their land.....as the kangas have been bounding about in this land for many thousands of years before whiteman invaded 'their' land .... Derek

What were the ones finding to eat on the road tarmac in your previous picture?

It is not uncommon to find grain growing along the road edges or spilt onto the roadway during the various harvest times and the type of grain being grown.Also the edges of roadways often have grass growing due to overnight dew etc.Hence why they are a big problem for traffic because they come to the roads to eat <*< <*< <*< instead of staying in the scrub.

When people talk about kangaroos living on this land for thousands of years we should be careful about what is meant by that. A landowner near us grew up in this district and his widow was telling us how he regularly used to get the train to Sydney. After one trip in the 50s he got home and was quite excited to tell her that he had seen a grey kangaroo from the train, the first he had seen in the district.

There are now thousands of them round here despite the culls. It's only about 160 years ago that Europeans started to live here and as they moved in they dug dams and of course that provided water to kangaroos and other animals. In a similar way sulphur-crested cockatoos moved here as both water was provided and oats and wheat planted and provided feed, now they can be a pest.

When we first moved here to our 'hobby farm' we never saw crested pigeons, 20 years later there is now a permanent population of about 20-30.

Couldn't agree more Tritsch, see my earlier post in this topic, post #12.

Sorry to disagree Derek, but the farmers actually do own their land (unless it's leased) and they would all have title deeds to prove it. The drought in the outback is causing kangaroos and other wildlife, to go looking for food, and where better to go than to a farm with crops and carefully managed pasture for them to eat. Pre white settlement they would have died anyway as there would have been no improved pasture or crops, so some culling may well be necessary - and justified.

I understand your words Peter ...and of course I acknowledge the farmers own their land.......[well the top soil anyway]

It was just the arrogance of the ABC journo that seemed inappropriate

However a more recent form of OZ 'wildlife' are the Board members of Gas exploration companies who continue to FRAK the substrate at the expense of the million year old underground aquifers which supply bore water for cropping

Simply saying they have Governmental law on their side doesn't necessarily mean the final result of pumping gas into the grid is to the advantage of our nations people

One of our larger energy utilities [Origin] introduced a GREEN $12.00 surcharge to my quarterly gas invoice without asking me if I wanted GREEN gas....now just because I pay by direct debit, I would never think that they hoped I would not notice the surcharge O0

Interestingly Origin could not confirm to me how they could validate that the gas supplied to me had a GREEN component

These are the newer white collar crime <*< version of OZ wildlife.......... Derek

I understand your words Peter ...and of course I acknowledge the farmers own their land.......[well the top soil anyway]

It was just the arrogance of the ABC journo that seemed inappropriate

However a more recent form of OZ 'wildlife' are the Board members of Gas exploration companies who continue to FRAK the substrate at the expense of the million year old underground aquifers which supply bore water for cropping

Simply saying they have Governmental law on their side doesn't necessarily mean the final result of pumping gas into the grid is to the advantage of our nations people

One of our larger energy utilities [Origin] introduced a GREEN $12.00 surcharge to my quarterly gas invoice without asking me if I wanted GREEN gas....now just because I pay by direct debit, I would never think that they hoped I would not notice the surcharge O0

Interestingly Origin could not confirm to me how they could validate that the gas supplied to me had a GREEN component

These are the newer white collar crime <*< version of OZ wildlife.......... Derek

....now........'Australian landowner farmer suicides after his lands water is lost due to and after over continual harassment by the Coal Seal Gas lowlife' <*< ...

"GEORGE Bender, a cotton farmer whose underground water bore had been impacted by CSG activities and who had been a long-time crusader against the industry, died on Wednesday night after being transferred from Chinchilla Hospital to Brisbane".

However all will be OK as the Directors of the CSG company will sip their Chardonnay over dinner well knowing one less land owner to battle with...... Derek